Yo dawg, everything you know and remember about MTV's Pimp My Ride show is a lie.
Turns out it was a lot more complicated than hitting up MTV and West Coast Customs to get a "pimped out ride." The Huffington Post spoke with three of the show's former pimpees about their experiences during and after filming. It also spoke with Larry Hochberg, the show's co-executive producer, for some balance — something some of the tricked-out cars didn't end up having. Womp.
Right from the get-go, Pimp My Ride was staging a fantasy story before the audience's eyes. HuffPo reports that MTV would often times rent out homes for the contestants to appear in when the show's host, Xzibit, "surprised" them. From there, the cars would be out of the owner's (often a teenager's) possession for months; not the weekend turnaround the show made it seem like. (Which, honestly, isn't that much of a surprise considering some cars featured ridiculous contraptions — like a champagne bar — that West Coast Customs probably didn't have on hand.)
Producers even ignored many of the guest's interests, to the extent they pimped out Justin Dearinger's car completely in red when he told them he hated the color.
HuffPo goes into details about some tricked out functions, like trunk televisions, not working properly, cars bottoming out and, uh, even exploding after filming. There's even a bit on how producers tried to get one pimpee to break up with his girlfriend. Gotta crank that drama, y'all. Oh, but, Xzibit is apparently chiller than chill. So, that's cool.
You've got to read the entire exposé in full. And, don't go pulling any of that tl;dr stuff, either. This is seriously some mind-blowing/ground-shaking stuff. Just don't tell us The Real World was staged too! (Huffington Post)
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